]]>https://ubie.org/junte-se-a-nos-em-lisboa/feed/0Join us in Lisbon on 24 September!https://ubie.org/join-us-in-lisbon-on-24-september/
https://ubie.org/join-us-in-lisbon-on-24-september/#respondSun, 03 Sep 2017 16:45:54 +0000http://ubie.minuskel.de/?p=1984The next meeting of Unconditional Basic Income Europe will be held in Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday, 24th September 2017, one day before the start of the 17th BIEN Congress.

This is the first time we will have an UBIE meeting at the same place and time as a BIEN Congress and we have a great chance to get to know each other better. UBIE therefore kindly invites participants of the Congress and representatives from BIEN to attend our meeting, as well.

UBIE members are all cordially invited to attend the BIEN Congress. Attendance is free for those who cannot afford the registration fee. Fees apply in any case for those who need a certificate of attendance or are make a presentation. Registration is mandatory and can be done on the Congress website.

UBIE will have a workshop at the Congress on Wednesday, 27th Sept 9.00 – 11.00.

Saturday, 23th September: Meetup (Basic Income on the Blockchain)

18.00 – 19.30: For all those who arrive on Saturday afternoon or earlier, we are organising a social get-together. Andy Milenius, programmer in the team of Circles, will give us an insight into their project of developing a blockchain-based cryptocurrency system for basic income.

The UBIE meeting is open to all members and interested guests. However, we kindly ask you to register with the form below if you plan to attend. Only persons who have signed up as members before 24th June 2017 are entitled to vote in the General Assembly.

Registration Form

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Programme options

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Saturday evening - UBI meetup and social get-together

Sunday morning - UBIE General Assembly

Sunday afternoon to evening – UBIE projects & activities workshops

BIEN Congress (separate registration necessary!)

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Accommodation

Do you need assistance with finding free/inexpensive accommodations? Please let us know for which night. Do you know people who can offer a room or a couch? Please send an email to contact@ubie.org

]]>https://ubie.org/join-us-in-lisbon-on-24-september/feed/0Basic income for Europe – UBIE Summer workshop in Ljubljanahttps://ubie.org/basic-income-for-europe/
https://ubie.org/basic-income-for-europe/#respondSat, 05 Aug 2017 21:16:35 +0000https://ubie.org/?p=2033The charming city of Ljubljana hosted an inspiring meeting of European basic income experts and activists end of July.

On Friday, 21 July UBIE co-organised an expert workshop with the title “Basic Income for Europe”, together with the NOVUM Institute and the European Liberal Forum. They discussed in-depth on partial basic income proposals for the European level with a focus on concrete legal changes, possible economic and social outcomes. This was rounded up by a review of ongoing and planned pilot projects from various European countries.

On Saturday and Sunday, 22-23 July, about 25 members of Unconditional Basic Income Europe came together for a creative working weekend in the highly inspiring co-working space “Poligon”. The aim of the meeting was to advance on joint projects, prepare campaigns and work on organisational development. Topics included Social Media, applying the Theory of Change concept for UBIE campaigns, plans for a Eurodividend conference, a concept for a new European Citizens Initiative or a campaign idea on a European Child Benefit.

]]>https://ubie.org/basic-income-for-europe/feed/0Basic income after the elections in France and the UKhttps://ubie.org/basic-income-after-the-elections-in-france-and-the-uk/
https://ubie.org/basic-income-after-the-elections-in-france-and-the-uk/#respondWed, 26 Jul 2017 18:26:49 +0000http://ubie.minuskel.de/?p=2003Two of Europe’s biggest countries, France and the United Kingdom, had elections this year, and both caused the continent hold its breath for a while. The first was anticipated anxiously for quite a while, whereas the second came out of the blue. Dániel Fehér, chair of UBIE, talked to Aurélie Hampel, UBIE board member and basic income activist from France, and Barb Jacobson, former chair of UBIE and coordinator of Basic Income UK about the implications of both elections for the basic income movement in Europe.

Dániel: While all of us were watching anxiously how France would respond to the populist challenge posed by Le Pen, something unexpected happened in the outgoing president’s Socialist Party: The outsider Benoit Hamon won the primaries with an explicit leftist agenda – and basic income. Aurélie, how did this change the perception of this issue in France?

Aurélie: When you start talking about basic income to French people these days, they go straight like “sure, the universal income proposed by Hamon”. For us this is the major outcome of this election: one of the main candidates promoted basic income as a central idea of his campaign and now everyone has heard about it. Whether they have a precise idea about it is a different question – still, it was a great opportunity to have a lot of discussion in all over France. Our basic income movement had lots of requests for lively debates and organising events on the topic. Also because Hamon wasn’t the only candidate to have basic income in his programme.

Dániel: So Hamon was helpful for the basic income debate, but was also the basic income debate helpful for Hamon?

Aurélie Hampel

Aurélie: Definitely! Two million citizens voted in the primaries and he won mainly because the idea of basic income inspired especially young people. My little brother voted for the first time because he finally saw a candidate with a programme attractive for the youth and oriented towards the future. I know also other people who were receptive to Hamon’s proposal as well as his programme for environmental and social justice because they thought about their children’s future. But mainly because of the mess in his party, his campaign collapsed in the final weeks and in the first round he only scored 6% of the vote. Nevertheless, I find it still encouraging that he was brave enough to promote such an ambitious plan and was ready to pay the political price for it.

Dániel: Did his poor showing in the presidential elections also harm the idea of basic income?

Aurélie: I don’t think so. People can distinguish between the two. The huge media coverage about basic income during the campaign cannot be undone. Of course, they will talk less about it in the coming months, but most people will remember the discussions.

Dániel: Let’s move to the other side of the Channel, then. There the role of basic income in the UK snap elections was not that prominent like in France, given that even the parties that were looking into it before did not have sufficient time to to include plans for it in their election manifestos. So how do you see it Barb, what is the level of political support from various political parties and what was your experience in the discussions with them ahead of the elections?

Barb: I have to say that the election kind of killed the discussion about basic income. Yes, the Green Party supports basic income – but except for the very beginning of the election they rarely talked about it. They also lost lots of votes as the fight became very polarized between Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May, because most people felt that they really had to get as far as they could to get the Tories out.

As for Labour, it has to be said that Corbyn, whenever he has been asked about basic income over the last couple of years, has always been very polite and said that he wants to look into it. This is kind of nice, but it’s also obvious that his advisors are not so supportive – except for his shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who really likes the idea. That’s why a few months ago they started a promising inquiry into basic income and said they planned to bring the issue to the next party conference end of September. But then the election was called and that killed off this process – the only proposal going remotely in this direction in the Labour manifesto was free college tuition.

Dániel: And what’s the approach on the government’s side?

Barb Jacobson

Barb: The Tories have instituted a welfare reform called Universal Credit, which combines several benefits. That could have been a good thing, but at the same time they also introduced a lot of extra conditions for getting unemployment and disability benefits, and cut the tax credit element for people with low-paid jobs, so all in all their social policies have been an incredible disaster.

However, last autumn, the Tories, in a desperate attempt to make fracking acceptable, suggested that people in the areas affected should all receive some money directly from shale gas taxes. The way they presented it was a classic basic income argument about people needing security and being able to plan their lives. Obviously, we in Basic Income UK did not support this idea, because it was a bribe to accept an environmentally suicidal policy. It did show how powerful the anti-fracking case and organising has become. However, it seems possible that in near future the Tories could decide to dump Universal Credit and opt for a low level basic income, again as a bribe to get people to vote for them. Apparently, some of their MPs are interested in the concept, even though we don’t know who those are. Also, the new Tory mayor of the West Midlands [the area around Birmingham] – ironically the only candidate in the recent local election there who did not support Citizens UK’s suggestion to run a basic income pilot in the region – acknowledged that he is following the experiments in Finland and Ontario with great interest.

Dániel: If we look beyond Westminster and England, there is also an active debate in Scotland, about basic income…

Barb: That is an interesting one, indeed. The SNP, the Scottish Nationalist Party was basically pushed by the more radical movement around the independence referendum in 2014 into officially supporting basic income. But except for one or two of their very enthusiastic MPs, they did not really push the issue in the election campaign. On the local level, however, it’s different. Last December, the Glasgow city council decided to do a feasibility study into a basic income pilot in the city, (led by a Labour councillor there), Fife Council is also looking into doing one (led by a Conservative) and now apparently North Ayrshire. That’s very hopeful.

Dániel: Now let’s get back to France where after the presidential elections a new parliament has also been elected. The results gave huge power to the new president Emmanuel Macron and his movement. What is their attitude to the basic income idea and do you see chances to work with them?

Aurélie: Yes, Macron’s En Marche and their liberal ally MoDem have 350 seats out of 577 in the lower chamber. Most of them are new faces, upper middle class people – independents, academics, business folks – without any previous political experience. So we have to talk to them and find out about their attitude towards basic income. On the other hand, we lost almost all the MPs that supported basic income. We hope that in September we will at least be able to retain the last member of the Senate who supports us, as the other one is not running again. So we will focus on pushing basic income pilot projects in the regions, for example on the island of Reunion that has already put forward a costed proposal, as well as on working with decision makers on the local and regional level.

Dániel Fehér

Dániel: Barb, would you dare to risk an outlook into the basic income movement’s future political chances in the UK?

Barb: Being from the left, I find it rather grim that the best prospect we can see at the moment is that the Tories bribe the electors with a partial basic income – although again I’m sure it will be minimal and will not be enough for most to live on… We don’t know how it could work out, but when she is not controlled by the idiots who ran her election campaign, Theresa May actually can see that there is real insecurity in the country and something needs to be done about it, while other Tories worry that UC will collapse and public anger will rise against it.

As I said before, I’m slightly pessimistic about the Labour party since Corbyn himself talks mainly about full employment, which is based really on full male employment, and takes no account of caring and other unpaid work. Even if Labour are willing to restart their basic income inquiry from before, there is the risk that it will be swept away again by yet another early election, and after his relative success last time there is little chance that the manifesto, which said very little welfare, and nothing about ending the sanction regime, will change much. The movement behind Corbyn, Momentum, gives us a lot of hope, since so many are very pro basic income. Quite a lot of local councillors from Labour are very positive about the idea, particularly in the north of England where there’s more poverty and unemployment than in the south.

Dániel: So what if anything can we learn as European basic income activists from these two election stories?

Aurélie: The French example can give a hope for all the countries that it’s possible to be successful with such an ambitious idea. And also that talking to all kind of politicians about basic income pays off: One year before the elections, Benoit Hamon was against the idea – and just one year later he took it into his programme. So we should not underestimate the capacity of politicians to listen.

Barb: I would add that the fact that Hamon was successful in the primaries with the idea actually made other European parties such as Labour view it it more seriously. In the end we really have to think globally and work locally: The whole experience in Birmingham with the mayoral election proved that we have to get more local politicians support the idea and hope that they will move on up at some point. We need to push much more from the grassroots.

Dániel: Well, thank you both for all these interesting insights and ideas.

]]>https://ubie.org/basic-income-after-the-elections-in-france-and-the-uk/feed/0Exploitation in digital sector jobs – only basic income can fix it!https://ubie.org/exploitation-in-digital-sector-jobs-only-basic-income-can-fix-it/
https://ubie.org/exploitation-in-digital-sector-jobs-only-basic-income-can-fix-it/#respondFri, 16 Jun 2017 17:54:56 +0000http://ubie.minuskel.de/?p=1905A new report by the European Parliament fails to answer how increasing freedom for businesses in the collaborative economy is compatible with protecting social rights. Only basic income can ensure this, says Dániel Fehér, Chair of the activists’ network Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE).

The new report “On a European Agenda for the collaborative economy”, approved by the European Parliament, calls for better regulation of platform-based services, such as Uber and Foodora, to ensure fair competition and to fight “social dumping” practices, which have became emblematic for such enterprises. Europe needs to embrace digitalisation to improve services and the competitiveness of its enterprises, as well as offering new roads to employment for people otherwise cut off from the job market. But the report fails to show how to protect employees’ rights in the sector.

Commenting on the report, Dániel Fehér, Chair of UBIE said:

“With basic income, everyone is given sufficient social protection, whether they are employed fully, partially or work as freelancers on zero hour contracts. If people know that their survival is ensured, they can decide more freely what kind of jobs they want to accept. Therefore, exploitation and inhuman working conditions would not give companies a competitive advantage anymore, as nobody would want to work for them.”

“The European Parliament’s report is full of good intentions, but lacks real solutions as to how to reconcile the need for innovative business models with an effective protection of workers in this sector. It only calls vaguely upon the Commission to commit to further research and on governments to provide better national rules. Clear evidence that the classic instruments of the welfare state and labour market regulation cannot cope with the challenges of digitalisation. Only basic income can do that.”

The collaborative economy – often misguidedly dubbed “the sharing economy” – is based on peer-to-peer transactions, mainly powered by digital platforms. Such business models are providing great services, which are much better tailored to the needs of their consumers than their classical competitors. However, their economic advantage is often based on hiring workers as freelance service providers rather than as employees with full legal and social protection.

The present report, prepared by Italian MEP Nicola Danti, is a reaction to last year’s European Commission guidelines on the digital economy, which it finds deeply unsatisfactory. The Commission is expected to update these guidelines this year. UBIE hopes the European Commission will now consider basic income as a possible solution for the gig economy’s social challenges, an opportunity which the European Parliament has, unfortunately, missed this time.

]]>https://ubie.org/exploitation-in-digital-sector-jobs-only-basic-income-can-fix-it/feed/0It’s basic income time, Europe!https://ubie.org/its-basic-income-time-europe/
https://ubie.org/its-basic-income-time-europe/#respondTue, 13 Jun 2017 07:09:18 +0000http://ubie.minuskel.de/?p=1909Dear friends! With your help, we can put unconditional basic income on the agenda of the European Union in 2017.

Much has changed since 2013 when we started collecting signatures for unconditional basic income in the EU. Once regarded as an exotic idea, basic income has featured on the front pages of national newspapers, in the manifestos of political parties and in debates in national parliaments and EU institutions. Switzerland voted, Finland started its pilots in January, and other experiments are being prepared in the Netherlands, France, Scotland and Spain.

All this makes our task more exciting, but also more challenging. It’s not just about spreading the idea of basic income anymore. We also have to develop concrete policy proposals and convince policy makers.

In the past years, Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE) has brought together experts, campaigners and passionate supporters, who started to explore concepts like the Eurodividend (a partial basic income for all Europeans), EU support for basic income experiments, agrarian basic income, or a European child benefit. And we have taken these ideas to decision makers in the European Parliament and the European Commission.

But we want to step up our activities. We need to seize the current opportunities and push basic income more actively into political debates in Brussels and across the EU. Even with lots of volunteer time going into UBIE’s efforts, it comes down to this: To become more effective, we need more resources.

Find at least 5 partner regions across Europe to ask the European Commission for co-financing and monitoring parallel basic income experiments;

Organise 3 workshops on EU-level policy debates on issues where basic income can be part of the solution, and create a new online magazine to intervene in ongoing policy discussions;

Organise a conference to refine our Eurodividend proposal.

To work on the tasks above, we would like to bring together basic income activists for a creative weekend this summer. We are also organising the next meeting of Unconditional Basic Income Europe alongside the 2017 BIEN Congress in Lisbon, to enhance cooperation between basic income advocates globally.

UBIE is in a unique position to become a strong voice for basic income advocates in Brussels and to support those lobbying on national or regional levels.

We have the right people and the right ideas – with your support we can bring basic income into the corridors of power in Brussels and elsewhere!

We can’t just lean back and wait until history does its job and basic income becomes inevitable. Because it also matters what kind of basic income we get, eventually. As the current experiments in Finland and those proposed in the Netherlands show, basic income can be also used as a pretext to lower social protection – that’s not what we want. UBIE is fighting for improving existing social security and creating chances for all members of our societies.

Together, let’s promote the debate in the European Union on a progressive basic income model that allows people to regain the lost control over their own time, their own lives! Together, let’s give a loud voice to all Europeans fighting for for a more just, peaceful and equitable world! Together, let’s act to transform the dream of generations of dignity, sufficiency and peace into real policies in Europe!

From each according to their abilities – even the smallest donation counts!

And, please, don’t forget to pass on this article to friends who share our vision.

Unconditionally yours,

Aurélie, Anja, Ulrich, Dániel and Lena
(The Board of Unconditional Basic Income Europe)

]]>https://ubie.org/its-basic-income-time-europe/feed/0UBI-Europe springs forward – Meeting in London, March 2017https://ubie.org/ubi-europe-springs-forward-meeting-in-london-march-2017/
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:58:53 +0000http://basicincome-europe.org/ubie/?p=1226After an inspirational series of meetings in London 24-26 March, the new board of Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE) gets ready for a busy year ahead. Our weekend of events themed ‘Basic Income: not just a pretty idea’ in London was a big success. Over 60 members and friends of Unconditional Basic Income Europe from 12 countries attended throughout the weekend.

On Friday, 24th March, we had a tour of the City which focused on London’s 1000-year working history, with a brief stop on the river’s foreshore. That evening 11 activists from different parts of Europe reported on the situation of basic income in their respective countries. We are grateful to Father David Allen for providing St Clement’s Church, Finsbury for this meeting.

On Saturday 25 March we had a great conversation with four British trade unionists who have been working in support of basic income in the UK, with Kevin Brandstratter, Nikki Dancey and Martin Smith of the GMB union, and Becca Kirkpatrick from Unison. We explored the reasons for stronger UK union support for the idea while unions in other European countries have either ignored UBI or been openly hostile. Some of these reasons are structural – in several European countries trade unions share responsibility with the state for dispensing unemployment benefits.

In the afternoon we held workshops on several topics and projects for UBIE: A new European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI); UBIE external communications; Future Lab (a multimedia exhibition featuring UBI); UBI political parties around Europe; lobbying the EU. As always, meeting in real life renewed people’s energy for carrying these projects forward.

On Sunday 26 March during the General Assembly we looked at two practical tools for people to use back home, and which we hope to implement within UBIE: Introductions to developing a Theory of Change and a Power Structure Analysis.

The General Assembly also elected a new board for UBIE. Dániel Fehér from Hungary is now Chair, Lena Stark (Sweden) and Anja Askeland (Norway) are Vice-Chairs, Aurélie Hampel from France is Board Secretary and Ulrich Schachtschneider from Germany is our new Treasurer.

The meeting expressed its gratitude to the board members who stepped down this year: Barb Jacobson (UK) who was UBIE’s Chair since the network’s founding in 2014, Nicole Teke (France) who was Vice-Chair since 2016 and Quentin Fabri (Belgium), UBIE’s first Treasurer. All three wished the new board well in taking UBI-Europe’s work forward.

We are also very grateful to the GMB Union for hosting these two days. We look forward to meeting the challenges and opportunities this year!

]]>A Eurodividend for all Europeanshttps://ubie.org/a-eurodividend-for-all-europeans/
Sun, 12 Mar 2017 21:36:42 +0000http://basicincome-europe.org/ubie/?p=1157Europe is in deep trouble – economically, socially, and politically. We need new, bolder and stronger instruments to counter the forces of disintegration. A partial basic income paid to all Europeans – a Eurodividend – could become the policy instrument that safeguards the EU and especially the Eurozone from asymetric economic shocks and reconciles citizens with the idea of European integration.

By François Denuit

Today, the risk of poverty and social exclusion levels in the EU and in particular the precarity of young people, child poverty and in-work poverty are extremely worrying whilst the prospects of the EU’s 2020 poverty target (i.e. to lift 20 million people out of poverty by 2020) look rather dim. Moreover, unemployment levels remain very high and particularly affect young people whereas the technological and digital revolution is affecting employment in various aspects, through the replacement of a great amount of jobs, the reorganisation of the workplace and the increase of the gap between productivity gains and income earned by workers. Finally, in the Eurozone, the introduction of the euro has produced increasing economic divergence between deficit and surplus countries (in terms of GDP per capita, labour productivity or unemployment levels among others) as well as important social imbalances in terms of public investment in education, healthcare, or social security.

Many citizens who feel let down by mainstream policies with such disastrous results turn towards populist, nationalist parties that promise relief at the cost of European solidarity. All this threatens the European project, the viability of the monetary union and, most importantly, it affects directly the life of millions of Europeans who struggle to live a decent life.

For all these reasons, UBIE considers that a modest income floor in the form of a European partial basic income granted unconditionally to all EU citizens and legal long-term residents would provide a smart way to tackle the three social priorities mentioned:

reduce poverty and income inequalities by guaranteeing basic income security,

provide a complementary replacement income to that of national welfare programmes for unemployed people, and

reduce excessive economic and social imbalances between Eurozone countries thanks to its automatic stabilizing effect.

Such a Eurodividend is a modest income floor averaging 200 euro per month (depending on the funding scheme and whether it is adjusted to the cost of living). It would be distributed to all adult residents of the EU member states on an individual basis and without means testing or work requirements.

A Eurodividend is not meant to replace national minimum income schemes. Instead, it provides a cushion over which EU member states are able to pursue their own welfare arrangements to ensure a decent life for all their citizens. The introduction of a Eurodividend aims at the development of a fair, stable and efficient European social model as it embodies a European commitment to social citizenship with “a policy that is ‘European’ in scope and substance, transparent and simple to administer”.*

Indeed, the Eurodividend would provide a fair redistributive mechanism to ensure that all Europeans equally benefit from the wealth generated by European integration:

It would considerably improve the condition of the worst-off European citizens, who would access a complementary European unconditional income without any administrative obstacles or risk of social stigma, ameliorating as a result the EU’s objective of poverty alleviation and reduction of social exclusion.

It would provide a mechanism of solidarity in the form of transnational fiscal transfers necessary for the Eurozone to absorb asymmetric economic shocks and reduce the pressures exerted on European welfare states due to economic and social imbalances.

An added benefit could also be a significant reduction of the push factors for migration within the EU, avoiding thus the negative effect of “brain drains” in certain countries.

Last but not least, this would certainly have a beneficial effect on the EU’s legitimacy and popular support as it would develop help develop the tangible image of a “caring union”.

The funding of a Eurodividend could be based on a combination of the following levies: a European VAT, a European corporate income tax, a European carbon tax, a European financial transaction tax, a European tax on luxury goods, a reallocation of (part of) European funds such as the European Social Fund or the budget devoted to the Common Agricultural Policy for example, or an increase of member states’ contributions to the EU budget.

What matters is that its funding depend on the EU’s own resources to establish a clear link between EU’s budget and its benefits for European citizens.

UBIE has recently argued in favour of the Eurodividend in its contribution to the public consultation organised by the European Commission on the European pillar of social rights. It is committed to further investigate the idea and will now organise expert workshops to elaborate on macro-economic effects, administrative capacities and funding opportunities. Last but not least, UBIE intends to push the idea forward within European cenacles but also in wider public debates in order to develop a more social Europe, following a ‘bottom-up’ approach aiming at a thicker transnational civil society.

]]>French Socialist primary election : historic victory for universal basic income!https://ubie.org/french-socialist-primary-election-historic-victory-for-universal-basic-income/
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 17:05:44 +0000http://basicincome-europe.org/ubie/?p=1127Benoît Hamon, a vocal supporter of basic income, came out first (36%) in the first round of the socialist primary in France on Sunday. He now has a serious chance to become the final Socialist candidate for the presidential election. For Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE) this is a good sign that this discussion is meaningful for the French electorate, just as it is gaining momentum in many other countries around Europe.

“The eradication of poverty, a way to cope with the changes in work and what is at stake with the digital revolution: these are the main reasons why I want to implement a universal basic income,” explained Benoît Hamon to the French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB).

Hamon’s basic income proposal was one of the main topics debated in the media the days running up to the primary. His victory in the first round has placed basic income at the heart of the electoral debate, showing that this idea is a viable and necessary solution that raises hope in many French citizens.

The MFRB rejoiced at the outcome of the vote: “This is a big win, not just for Hamon but also for the idea of basic income. It is a proof that hundreds of thousands of people in France want to place basic income on the top of the political agenda now. Hamon’s candidacy to the presidential election will ensure that this issue continues to be central to the national debate,” said Nicole Teke, Board Member of Unconditional Basic Income Europe and Public Relations Coordinator of the MFRB.

The transnational activist network Unconditional Basic Income Europe also reacted positively to this result: “This is a historic moment in the evolution of the public debate on basic income. It is the first time in any major election in Europe that basic income is the issue that might actually make the difference. It surely won’t be the last. We will thus follow this election very closely,” said Dániel Fehér, Board Member of UBIE.

The MFRB promotes basic income as a new pillar of the French social welfare system – beyond being an investment for the future, an answer to numerous economic and social issues, and a tool to further social justice. This vision is shared by the Green candidate Yannick Jadot, but also by Charlotte Marchandise, the citizens’ movement”s candidate, who have also placed UBI in the heart of their electoral programs.

Time to look back, time to look ahead. As we look back, we can be probably more proud of ourselves than ever before. Just a few reminders why 2016 could go down as the year when the world began to notice that unconditional basic income is an idea ‘whose time has come’:

Beyond that, a growing number of political parties and movements are coming out in favour of basic income, with celebrities like high tech guru Elon Musk, the former Greek minister of finance Yanis Varoufakis or outgoing US-President Barack Obama voicing their cautious to outspoken support.

We at Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE) have been doing our best to build on this wave and put the basic income debate on the political agendas in Brussels and throughout Europe. We organised three meetings attended by basic income activists from across the continent: Maastricht in January, Hamburg in May and Madrid in October. In July, some of us participated in the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress in Seoul, South Korea.

Our meetings were important opportunities to share information and develop our Europe-wide projects. These include: a possible new EU-wide petition or citizens’ initiative, a partial basic income for all EU citizens (the Eurodividend), mobilising EU-funding for basic income pilot projects in the increasing number of regions that want to do them, or the idea of basic income for people in the food and farming sector.

We have also compiled a submission to the European Commission’s public consultation on the ‘European Pillar of Social Rights‘, and recently found support for the idea of basic income at a recent conference on ‘The Future of Work We Want’ co-organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the International Labor Organisation (ILO).

All these activities are really stretching the capacities of the numerous volunteers working in UBIE. To be able to sustain and professionalise our efforts, we launched a fundraising appeal on OpenCollective. With your support, we hope to cover our running costs, further develop our projects and help more activists attend our meetings. Please chip in whatever you can!

And our last request for this year – besides being happy about all the above achievements – is to mark a weekend in your calendars: Our next UBIE network meeting will take place in London, March 25/26, 2017. Watch this space, our website, our Twitter feed or our Facebook page for details!